Iris

What color is your Iris? Is it blue, hazel, brown, green? I had the most beautiful Iris in my life. My grandmother Iris.

She departed from us physically in the summer of 2009. She was the most colorful being I had ever known. She was full of the most practical advice...she never fed me a line of bullshit...and I have clearest memories of her.

She kept a bowl full of nabs (what southern folk call a pack of crackers) on the kitchen counter. Her icebox was stocked with Nehi Peach soda. She could make the most delicious hash browns I have ever tasted. She let us drink hummingbird feed water if we really begged hard :-). She taught me how to drive, how to saw wood, how to be a better person.

She would always tell me "eat it while you can". Her family had a history of health problems so she basically was saying eat what you can while you are young cause when you get old they will tell you not to eat that. She would always say "do what makes you happy". No one else ever told me that but her. She fully believed in the golden rule and wiping your feet before you came inside.

She new a dog was a dog and belonged outside-yet at the same time she had so much respect for all life. She could plant and oak tree and I swear it would grow faster than at any arboretum. When I went to college she collected canned veggies for me to take back from a salvage grocery store in town. She was simply amazing. She said wash with an "r" like "warsh" and chicago with an "r" like "chicargo".

She was wise beyond her years...especially being from a really small place and not being exposed to much of the world. She also slept with the tv on and snored really loud.

I miss her all the time. She was my Iris.